'People are skeptical at first and then see it’s good.' -- Irfan Khan, owner of Salt N Pepper restaurant

Goat cheese has long been a staple in New Orleans restaurants, but lately more chefs are venturing beyond the dairy product to savor goat meat dished out in curries, empanadas, tacos, salads and kebabs.

Goat, which is a staple for much of the globe, is becoming more common in the United States and, more recently in the Crescent City where it is finally catching on to the flavors and other benefits of meat derived from the quirky little ruminants.

“The palate in the U.S. is diversifying and has been for a while,” said Michael Doyle, chef and owner of Maurepas Foods in Bywater.

Tacos and empanadas featuring goat meat reign among the most popular menu items at newer restaurants, such as Maurepas and Serendipity in Mid-City.

Goat is used in a number of dishes at Tan Dinh in Gretna, including this sautee.David Grunfeld / The Times-Picayune / Nola.com

More established spots also have added goat-meat dishes to their offerings. The lunch menu at Herbsaint Bar and Restaurant, a Central Business District bistro helmed by chef Donald Link, includes a crispy goat salad with cucumbers and goat feta. The restaurant sometimes serves a goat lasagna as a special. Tan Dinh Vietnamese Bistro in Gretna dishes out a complex goat curry that keeps customers ordering more.

Colleen Rush, a New Orleans-based author and freelance food writer for national publications, said she has noticed the meat growing more common in mainstream American meals in a trend that is starting to reach Crescent City menus.

Goat meat appeals to chefs and hungry customers for various reasons, beginning with the most obvious: the taste.

6 places to get your goat

Salt N Pepper Restaurant

403 Iberville St., French Quarter, 504.561.6070

Goat spinach, a sautéed spinach dish cooked with ginger, garlic and tender goat on the bone, in the style of Indian and Pakistani cuisine, $10.99. Goat biryani, an Indian layered basmati rice dish with special seasonings and chunks of goat, $10.99. The restaurant also serves goat masala, goat okra, goat daal, Gobi goat, kalaji gosht and goat paya.

De xao lan, tender goat simmered in house curries with a mix of nuts and herbs, $13.95 for a small, $24.95 for a large. De xao sate, goat simmered in house curries with a spicier sauce added,. $13.95 for a small, $24.95 for a large.

3700 Orleans Ave., Suite A-3 in the American Can Company Building, Mid-City, 504.407.0818

Malaysian Red Curry Goat Empanada, curried goat with Brabant rutabagas and caramelized parsnips baked in a house-made pastry and served with a basil, mint and cucumber raita and sweet-potato tostones, $14.

Crispy Goat Salad with Cucumbers and Goat Feta, a lunchtime salad featuring strips of goat meat and cheese from Ryals Goat Dairy in Mississippi, $15
The restaurant also occasionally serves a special goat-meat lasagna.

“It’s a delicious meat,” said Rush, an enthusiastic fan of goat meat. “It’s lean, but it’s flavorful. It’s got a lot more interesting flavor than even pork.”

That flavor seems tough to describe. Local chefs often mentioned a taste they could best sum up as slightly gamey, or as Rush put it, “earthy.”

The flavor lays a distinct bass note for a dish, said Chris DeBarr, executive chef and an owner of Serendipity.

The restaurant opened six months ago with DeBarr’s Malaysian Red Curry Goat Empanadas on the menu. The take on Spanish meat pies features goat meat thanks to Rush, who dared DeBarr to concoct a dish using the meat.

“It’s a riff on a meat pie. Anything can go in a meat pie,” DeBarr said.

The cubed, braised goat gives the dish a unique flavor, but the empanada also includes rutabaga and parsnips to create a note of familiarity through a potpie texture. The familiar touch of helps ease diners into experiencing the unfamiliar meat, DeBarr said.

“It’s been a good seller that we’ve had to work to keep up with,” DeBarr said.

The flavor may be challenging to describe, but the texture is not, chefs say.

“It’s tender meat for such a sinewy creature,” Doyle said. “It has a lot of character.”

Doyle’s hearty goat tacos, baked overnight in a special Maurepas spice mix and served with cilantro harissa and pickled green tomatoes, are a signature item at Maurepas, which goes through a whole goat daily to meet demand for the dish.

The restaurant has served the tacos since opening early last year; only the tacos and chicken quarters, remain from the original menu, Doyle said.

The chef said he created the dish because goats fit well into the restaurant’s ideals of using seasonal, locally sourced ingredients. Tacos also fit into Maurepas’ menu of internationally inspired recipes. Doyle, like several other local chefs interviewed, butchers the goat himself to keep prices lower. He uses the goat organs in Maurepas charcuterie plates and sometimes serves goat-head cheese, goat-head soup or goat-head dumplings.

The restaurant’s popular cheese plate always includes a goat cheese or two, Doyle said.

Numerous New Orleans restaurants incorporate goat cheese into their menus, often from Ryals Goat Dairy in Mississippi.

The Ryals’ goat farm also supplies meat to some New Orleans restaurants, such as Herbsaint. Halal butchers, including the Kased Brothers in Kenner, supplied the first goats for several local restaurants and still supplies goat for neighboring restaurant Shishkabob House, but many New Orleans chefs get their goats directly from farmers in Mississippi.

Such local, non-factory-farmed sourcing forms another major advantage of goat, chefs said. Goats tend to be efficient and easy to farm, making these animals more accessible and cost-effective for restaurants looking for pastured, non-factory-farmed meats, said several local chefs.

“It’s a sustainable meat,” DeBarr said.

Goats not only offer a free-range meat option at reasonable costs, but goat is typically leaner, lower in calories and lower in saturated fat than beef, said Molly Kimball, a registered dietitian and columnist for The Times-Picayune / Nola.com.

“Like any type of meat, the nutritional stats vary by cut, but overall, goat meat has less marbling than beef or pork,” Kimball said.

Maria Vu, chef and owner of Tan Dinh, said she added goat to her menu more than eight years ago after her doctor encouraged her to use goat meat as a healthier option. Vu’s goat curries use a yellow Indian curry as well as her own house-made curry. One of the dishes also includes a third, spicier sauce, Vu said.

Vu said she recruited friends from India to help create the dishes that are not traditional Vietnamese cuisine. The goat curries have been a hit. Vu goes through four goats every two weeks.

Owners of Salt N Pepper Restaurant in the French Quarter and Shishkabob House also tout the health benefits of goat, which has long formed a staple in their homelands.

Salt N Pepper owner Irfan Khan said he grew up eating grilled, barbecued and curried goat fresh off his grandfather’s farm in Kashmir. Khan’s Indian and Pakistani Halal cuisine includes various versions of curried goat, all cooked to order with garlic, ginger and vegetables. The goat sautéed in spinach and biryani, a layered rice dish, form the most popular goat-meat dishes at the restaurant.

“People are skeptical at first and then see it’s good,” he said, adding that he cooks up to eight goats during a busy week. “Once they have it, they come back with four or five friends.”

Dirar Mousa, owner of Shishkabob House, said lamb is more popular than goat in his native Palestine, but it is still a common ingredient. New Orleanians gravitate to the restaurant’s grilled goat, served on kabobs and in sandwiches, for the taste and health reasons, Mousa said.

Goat could start appearing on even more local menus, Rush said, due to the welcoming spirit of New Orleans food culture.